Everything You Need To Know About Occupy Wall Street

Where did the Occupy Wall Street movement come from? Nobody seriously expected thousands of people to hit the streets (or camp on them) for weeksand protest the rotten economy, growing inequality, and the shifty titans of finance. But there were people who tried to make it happen, and there are people who’ve found themselves swept in by the tide.

Here’s a guide to Slate’s coverage of Occupy Wall Street. The timeline, which will be updated, tracks the origins of the movement from some wishful op-eds to actual arrests. The glossary explains the terms and the players. This diagram maps the intersection between #OWS and the Tea Party.

If you want to watch a Tea Partier turn red-faced and start smashing things, compare his movement to Occupy Wall Street. “We here at the Tea Party Express find those comparisons to be insulting,” wrote that group’s spokeswoman, Amy Kremer, in a jeremiad/fundraising appeal. “Their motivations, their behavior and their disrespect for the principles that made this country great could not stand in starker contrast to ours.”

The feeling isn’t mutual. Many Occupiers think that their nascent movement should have started years ago. Van Jones, the former White House adviser who’s trying to build a left-wing Tea Party, has welded together the two movements in a series of speeches. With Occupy Wall Street, he has said, Obama-era liberals have gone from “hopey to mopey” and finally captured the oomph that the Tea Party used to have.

How much do the movements actually have in common? The Venn diagram below plots the concerns, allies, heroes, and inspirations of the two movements. It illustrates where and how they intersect, and which of them have opposite, anti-matter versions on the other side.